WI Half Marathon RR

The training: Spent the better part of this winter doing a Hansons 5k training plan. My goal was to run a sub-21 5k (which was what my last half predicted). That didn’t happen, partly due to bad course conditions (snow, ice, wind, and cold) and partly because I suck at 5k’s. After finishing my “goal 5k” in a disappointing 21:26, I turned my attention to half marathon training. I basically did a modified version of the last 6 weeks of the Hudson Level 2 half marathon plan.

The race: I chose the WI Half because its early May date meant better potential for cool weather. It is also a nice flat, fast course that I have always wanted to run.

Race day: 45 degrees (perfect) with 13mph wind from the WNW (not perfect). Luckily the course is primarily North/South, so I was hoping it would be okay. I decided to wear a tank top and shorts which was just about right.

I had 2 pieces of toast with sunflower seed butter and a banana, 2 cups of coffee, and a can of Diet Mt. Dew for breakfast (yes, really). Arrived at the race site about 45 minutes prior to race start but we had to wait in line for parking and didn’t get to the start area until about 15 minutes prior to race start. I had to pee but I knew I needed to do my warm up and there was no time to wait in port o potty lines so I hoped once I started running I would forget it (and I did – it magically went away when the gun went off). Did a little over a mile warm up with strides – despite how WINDY it felt, my legs felt great and I knew I had a chance for a decent race. Ducked into the corral with 5 minutes to go and lined up near the 7mm sign.

Splits:

Miles 1-4: Felt pretty good from the start – I had planned to go out around 7:05-7:10 and the effort felt right. These felt fairly comfortable. I settled behind 2 girls wearing pink and black Lululemon ensembles (which I found amusing because that’s what I was wearing also) but then they started to slow around mile 4 so I went ahead and passed them. (7:02, 7:07, 7:10, 7:10).

Miles 5-8: These miles were near the lake and heading north. This is where I could feel the wind working against me a bit and I slowed down. I passed a few guys in this stretch and a few of them offered me some encouraging “good jobs” which I appreciated and around mile 6 I passed a guy in a cow costume. (Thank the lord.) Also grabbed a cup of Gatorade at one of the aid stations somewhere in here. (7:18, 7:16, 7:12).

Miles 9-10: So happy to reach the turnaround point and start heading south again. Wind slightly at my back now made all the difference. At this point, I start to hear some of the runners who I am passing after the turnaround tell me ‘You’re 6th female’, ‘7th female’. Pretty cool and I felt kind of invigorated by this – never had that happen before (7:05, 7:04)

Miles 11-13.1: I was pretty wiped at this point. There was one girl in front of me though that I was slowly gaining on. During mile 11, there was a slight incline after turning west and into the wind and she slowed a bit and I passed her. The last 2 miles I was pretty spent. I just focused on keeping my arms moving and telling myself that I only had 15 minutes left, 10 minutes left... I could do this for 5 more minutes…etc (7:21, 7:01, 7:07, and then 6:42 for the last .23).

Final time of 1:34:22, 5th female and 2nd AG, 46th OA out of 2073 half marathoners.

Pretty happy with this. It’s about a 2:45 PR for me. I think the wind affected me slightly but not much. I pretty much ran the race where my fitness is right now and I can’t complain. Brats, beer and cheese at the finish line because this is how we do it in Wisconsin (along with bananas, bagels and chocolate milk). It was a well-organized race and I’d do it again.

Congratulations on the PR and that's really a great time. I plan to do my first HM late this year and looking forward to hearing how people manage their races. You seem to take the same approach I do at the end of the race when I start counting down how little time is left in comparison to what I have already accomplished. It does sound like this distance plays more to your strengths then a shorter race like a 5K but I'm sure even training for that race helped out your overall time.

Really nice splits. I saw the splits in the middle miles drop a bit and I wonder if it was as much due to the wind as it is to the difficulty of holding pace between Miles 5-8. I have struggled with that as well. I always swear I'm going to really focus on maintaining pace in that section and I never do. I think it's the combination of the excitement of the start being long gone and the finish nowhere in sight along with the first twinges of discomfort that makes those middle miles so difficult.

Congrats on a terrific race. (BTW, if you pass someone on an uphill later in a race, you will almost never see them again. Sweet).

Short Term Goal - 17:59 5K

Medium Term Goal - 2:54:59 marathon

Long Term Goal - To have been a runner half my life (I started at age 45)

Really nice splits. I saw the splits in the middle miles drop a bit and I wonder if it was as much due to the wind as it is to the difficulty of holding pace between Miles 5-8. I have struggled with that as well. I always swear I'm going to really focus on maintaining pace in that section and I never do. I think it's the combination of the excitement of the start being long gone and the finish nowhere in sight along with the first twinges of discomfort that makes those middle miles so difficult.

Congrats on a terrific race. (BTW, if you pass someone on an uphill later in a race, you will almost never see them again. Sweet).

Thank you. You know, this is definitely a possibility. Usually in a half marathon, I am focused on getting to mile 10 and then I can deal with the last 5k, so yeah, those miles where you still have so much of the race left and it's already uncomfortable, it can be easy to let up a little. I remember starting to feel the effort becoming harder during mile 4, which was a fairly protected area through downtown. It didn't help that the others around me were slowing at this point. I passed a fair amount of people in these miles and it's easy to let yourself slow down when other people slow down too.

Duck - Yes, this winter was rough and I wasn't sure my training (reduced mileage) was good enough to PR but I did use the indoor track/treadmill a lot to get speedwork done and then thankfully I got in some good weeks in late March/April once most of the snow melted.

Peach - Yes, and cow dude was fast! I am pretty sure I will have one race photo where he is directly behind me because the photographer just happened to be right at the spot where I passed him. lol

Mandy - July is the answer. Actually, I had to talk myself out of running one this spring more than a couple times! (I'm still kind of tempted to just jump into one without training). But I am planning to run Indy Monumental again in Nov and hopefully I can just stick to that.

Wow, you smoked that half. Crap my Master 5k is almost a minute faster but my half is 2 minutes slower! No way I could be stroking off those low 7's like you did. I've never had a problem with a lull in the middle miles just a gradual build up that hits me around mile 8-9 and there it's rough. Fastest mile was 12?! Nice. Our schedule are similar; I do a faster speedwork before I begin my half schedule [also Hudson w/some tweaks].

That kills me you're running in the mid-6:50's for 5k and only slowing down to 7:12 for the half. How long were your tempos and did you just do the Hudson race pace workouts?

Wow, you smoked that half. Crap my Master 5k is almost a minute faster but my half is 2 minutes slower! No way I could be stroking off those low 7's like you did. I've never had a problem with a lull in the middle miles just a gradual build up that hits me around mile 8-9 and there it's rough. Fastest mile was 12?! Nice. Our schedule are similar; I do a faster speedwork before I begin my half schedule [also Hudson w/some tweaks].

That kills me you're running in the mid-6:50's for 5k and only slowing down to 7:12 for the half. How long were your tempos and did you just do the Hudson race pace workouts?

Thanks! You know, it kills me too that I can't run a faster 5k. I really don't get it. Last fall I ran a 22:17 5k (7:11 pace) and 6 weeks later ran a 1:37:06 half (7:24 pace). I thought I must have gained fitness and would have no problem running the sub-21 5k that my half predicted. But no, I worked on it all winter and only ended up with a 21:26 (6 weeks ago) - the course had a fairly big hill though. But then when I started doing my HMP workouts it was clear I had gained fitness.

For tempos I did one 10k paced workout a week (these all ranged from 6:55-6:49):

4x1mile at 10k pace

10x3 min at 10k pace

5x1mile at 10k pace

3k at HMP, 2k at 10k pace, 1k at 5k pace

3x1mile at 10k

And then one HMP workout each week (7:05-7:10):

2x15 minutes

4 at MP, 5 min recovery, 4 at HMP

4 at MP, 4 at HMP (no recovery between)

2x4 at HMP, 5 minute recovery

5x2k at HMP

And then a few fast finish long runs. I ran 16 miles 3 times, 14-15 once, and a LR of 12 most of the winter.

I averaged just under 50mpw this year (rough start this winter) but the 6 weeks of HM specific training were 58, 61, 61, 62, 54, 37 (race week)

So now McMillian says I should be able to run a 6:34 paced 5k (20:23). And I KNOW there is no way I can run that. I just seem to perform best at the half marathon distance.

Some of the 5K is about running in the dark place that we don't like! With your 1/2 time you can run a low 20 or even sub 20! I am 54 just ran 1:35, 00 1/2 and can run 20;00 (just ran 20:09 on a 7:00 1st mile) and coach tells me I can go sub 20 if I want to hurt! So I will tell you it's all about how bad you want to hurt on a 5K. Some hard V02 Max stuff will help, if you do speed work. Here is last week's track workout: 6 miles done 3.5 warm up easy, some form drills then: 4 x200 @ 44 sec with a 200 jog between then 3 X100 @ 3:55 or 1:35ish per 400 with 2 mins of rest then 2 X 400 @ 1:24 with a 400 jog 1.5 mile cooldown.

Some of the 5K is about running in the dark place that we don't like! With your 1/2 time you can run a low 20 or even sub 20! I am 54 just ran 1:35, 00 1/2 and can run 20;00 (just ran 20:09 on a 7:00 1st mile) and coach tells me I can go sub 20 if I want to hurt! So I will tell you it all about how bad you want to hurt on a 5K. Some hard V02 Max stuff will help, if you do speed work. Here is last week's track workout: 6 miles done 3.5 warm up easy, some form drills then: 4 x200 @ 44 sec with a 200 jog between then 3 X100 @ 3:55 or 1:35ish per 400 with 2 mins of rest then 2 X 400 @ 1:24 with a 400 jog 1.5 mile cooldown.

Maybe I am just a wimp when it comes to 5k pain? I feel like I am running them as hard as I can. To the point of feeling extremely nauseous and retching at the end.

I have done plenty of track workouts this winter, including mile paced repeats 8x200 (42sec), 4x400 (1:30-1:31), and plenty of 5k paced workouts - 6x800, 12x400, 4x1200, 3x1600, etc (6:40-6:50 paced). I don't know. I just can't seem to hold it together in a race.

Confused about one thing, you said those tempos are 10k pace but there faster than your recent 5k pace [6:54]. The structure of the quality workouts looks typical Hudson. Looks like your MAX workout was the 2x4 mile @ HMP. I used that several years ago and even did a 2x5 miles when I was running 1:36-1:37 times. Seems the 5k training has improved your lactate threshold and I bet the performance gains you realized at the half will result in faster times at 5k. Your 51 second improvement in 6 months seems realistic. How many 5ks have you raced? It took me a while to get dialed into the level of discomfort. BOSNPM, I could do that workout except for the 3x1000m portion. The best I could manage was 4:05.

Confused about one thing, you said those tempos are 10k pace but there faster than your recent 5k pace [6:54]. The structure of the quality workouts looks typical Hudson. Looks like your MAX workout was the 2x4 mile @ HMP. I used that several years ago and even did a 2x5 miles when I was running 1:36-1:37 times. Seems the 5k training has improved your lactate threshold and I bet the performance gains you realized at the half will result in faster times at 5k. Your 51 second improvement in 6 months seems realistic. How many 5ks have you raced? It took me a while to get dialed into the level of discomfort. BOSNPM, I could do that workout except for the 3x1000m portion. The best I could manage was 4:05.

This is true. Because I've used my predicted 5k pace from my half (6:45) for training purposes, but I always run faster when I can... So at the beginning of winter, I was doing my tempos at 7:00 (predicted from my half). But I kinda inched them down to 6:50 (which I think is correct). I still don't believe 6:54 is my 5k pace even though that is my current PR (my splits for that race were 6:46, 6:44, 7:20 that last mile was uphill and I died).

I actually ran a 5 race 5k series this winter. But, it was bad racing conditions all around - 3 were in frigid temps (5 degrees for two of them), snow and ice covered courses and the last one (my PR) was the first one with a clear course but it had a big hill and 16 mph wind. So that may be part of it. I think I can do better. I just haven't been able to (yet).

Thanks. That info tells me that your 5k PB will be set once you get better conditions [san snow and ice]. If you could do the wortkouts at those paces and nail your race that tells me they are correct [nice going with your gut].

Coastal - Thanks. I usually do about 1.5-2 miles with strides as a 5k warm up. I could try doing more. Or maybe because it was so cold out for all of these, I needed more.

Moth - I might give the 5k another shot on the 17th. A co-worker offered to pace me so if he doesn't back out I will likely do it. He has paced me once before and he's good. And I do want a chance to try again because I do think the conditions were part of it, but I still doubt I can hit 6:35 pace (which is what my new half predicts). I couldn't even hit that for 800's during speed sessions. I think my best ones were a 6:42 avg.

Congratz... those splits are crazy. I can run a sub 21 5k but my, half marathon splits are no where near what you have, I am totally jealous.

If you live in Wisconsin, I think the Green Bay Packers 5k course is a pretty good PR course (I ran my first sub 21 5k there). The field is small (compared to what I am used to in NYC) so you pretty much have the whole road to yourself (to hit them tangents). The only part of the course that may kill some of your top end speed (or give you a breather) is inside Lambeau field.

I totally want to do that race again if I visit Wisconsin this year.

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